Fighting a Customer Chargeback

I have a customer who ordered merchandise from our website. We shipped it to her via UPS. She called back about 30 days after receiving the product and said that she wanted to return it. Despite it being past our 30 days for allowed returns, I said it would be no problem provided we could restock the product.

When I received the return the product was in very bad condition. She had just tossed the items into a box and did not bother using any packing materials so the light bulbs that were sent were totally shattered. She also did not return any of the original product boxes. Not only that, it was clear that she had used the product for the 30-35 days that she had it in her possession and everything was in pretty bad shape, including cigarette holes in some of the stuff.

None of it was restockable so I shipped it back to her. I had called her to explain that the stuff she returned was not refundable in the condition that it was returned. She refused delivery of the package and it was returned to us.

I sent her letter outlining our terms and conditions that she agreed to upon placing here order which clearly states that returns have to be made within 30 days. Furthermore it states that that customers should insure return shipments as breakages that occur during return shipping are the responsibility of the customer. It also states that returned products cannot be returned in a used condition. I requested that she contact us to arrange for the product to be returned to her.

Instead, she did a chargeback on the entire transaction (approx $250) including shipping fees that she would not have received had the returned product not been used.

May i know the reason for chargeback, with reason code number that would be in the letter sent from your bank. This may give some idea on how to solve it.... and also if its a Visa or Mastercard that was used for the transaction

I have a customer who ordered merchandise from our website. We shipped it to her via UPS. She called back about 30 days after receiving the product and said that she wanted to return it. Despite it being past our 30 days for allowed returns, I said it would be no problem provided we could restock the product.

When I received the return the product was in very bad condition. She had just tossed the items into a box and did not bother using any packing materials so the light bulbs that were sent were totally shattered. She also did not return any of the original product boxes. Not only that, it was clear that she had used the product for the 30-35 days that she had it in her possession and everything was in pretty bad shape, including cigarette holes in some of the stuff.

None of it was restockable so I shipped it back to her. I had called her to explain that the stuff she returned was not refundable in the condition that it was returned. She refused delivery of the package and it was returned to us.

I sent her letter outlining our terms and conditions that she agreed to upon placing here order which clearly states that returns have to be made within 30 days. Furthermore it states that that customers should insure return shipments as breakages that occur during return shipping are the responsibility of the customer. It also states that returned products cannot be returned in a used condition. I requested that she contact us to arrange for the product to be returned to her.

Instead, she did a chargeback on the entire transaction (approx $250) including shipping fees that she would not have received had the returned product not been used.

Do I have any recourse against her?

You may have a difficult time prevailing, but it depends on the customer.

First, you waived the 30-day return policy so your only issue is that she returned the merchandise in unusable condition. In spite of having photos, this is going to be hard to prove and credit card associations almost always support the cardholder.

Here's the chargeback process in a nutshell:

1. Cardholder files chargeback, your account is debited;
2. You innstruct your bank to make a second presentment (your account usually still remains debited);
3. Cardholder instructs her bank to file second chargeback (your account is debited if not already);
4. At this point your ONLY option is to tell your bank to request arbitration.

*ARBITRATION: An arbitration chargeback is decided by a panel of credit card association (i.e. Visa, MC, AmEx) employees. Their decision is final. They will favor the cardholder if at all possible. The loser of the arbitration chargeback not only loses the money at dispute but ALSO an approximately $700 arbitration fee.

I would take it as far as step #2 and if your customer pushes to step #3 it's probably in your best interest to just roll over and play dead.